


Tomorrow is Another Day

by NavyGreen



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Caring Thranduil, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt Bard, King Bard the Bowman, M/M, Minor Bard the Bowman/Thranduil, Mostly Fluff, Winter, but it's not actually graphic, somewhat graphic descriptions of pain and wounds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-07
Updated: 2020-04-07
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:20:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23526064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NavyGreen/pseuds/NavyGreen
Summary: Bard struggles with wounds and the heavy weight of his new crown. Thranduil, experienced with both, helps him.
Relationships: Bard the Bowman & Thranduil, Bard the Bowman/Thranduil
Comments: 6
Kudos: 87





	Tomorrow is Another Day

Winter hit hard.

From the sluggish, half-frozen River Running, to the barren, cold ground, and punctured walls of New Dale, Winter settled over the East with a piercing malice.

It slithered its way through cracked stone, seeped into the earth, fell over streets in a mist.

And Bard, curled in a wobbly bed, with a torn blanket, leaking roof, and holey walls, almost thought he’d prefer to be in Lake Town.

Almost.

The hearth beside his bed crackled steadily, flickering in the dim light. Bard had first refused it – the little firewood they had needed to be used elsewhere – like the smithies, or the marketplace they were using as a community kitchen. The importance of a lowly bargemen’s room was insignificant.

_King._

_He was King, now._

Bard’s dark lashes fluttered open.

A lack of sleep had purpled his eyes, deepened them into hollows, and yet his eyelids were weightless, and he found he couldn’t close them for more than a few moments at a time. Exhaustion chained his bones to the earth, pulled at his mind into an endless spiral, tightened his chest and dragged something from his chest up his throat-

But he still couldn’t sleep.

Bard rolled onto his back and stared up at the ceiling. It flickered in brightness, pulling, fleeing from his sight only to reappear for a split moment.

The dull ache between Bard’s temples strengthened.

His children slept above him. The building – part of a tavern, Bard thought, or perhaps a small bar – was large enough for each of his children to sleep within a room of their own. And yet, they’d found a room large enough to accommodate all three of them. Habits died hard, especially those born from the conception of paranoia, and fear. Afterall, Bard’s bow – even though its limbs had snapped, and was burnt beyond use besides – sat on the floor by his bed.

A dull creak struggled through the dense wood above him. Bard squinted in the darkness.

He had been hesitant to let them sleep upstairs – who knew how stable the ceiling of any building of Dale was, let that of alone a two-story home.

But he had been assured – by Elves, nonetheless – the second story would hold strong. That, and the _Royal Family of Dale_ deserved the best building of their territory. Any Lakeman he would’ve argued with, but Elves, Bard had discovered, could be as stubborn as Dwarves.

A large house came with benefits, Bard supposed. For one, he could watch over New Dale from the balcony, and the people knew where to find him when they needed to.

(And, of course, he had not been allowed such privacy in a home since before he married.)

Bard traced the wooden beams of the ceiling above him slowly, counting the cracks. At one point he’d raised his arm and distantly traced them with his thumb.

One crack, shaped like an ‘L’, reached from the top of the third beam to half-way across the room. Another, two beams across, was forked.

The Man dropped his arm onto his chest with a sigh.

Outside, the crunch of snow below steel-toed boot drifted by his window, measured and steady. Bard watched a Man-shaped shadow glide across the opposite wall, spear or pike in hand.

His eyes fluttered closed. And they stayed – for a moment. And yet-

Back in Lake Town, when sleep eluded him like the stars to sunrise, he would find solace on the Lake, in the gentle rocking of his barge.

But that had burnt up.

Along with everything else on the Lake. Under that _cursed_ Dragon.

Beside him, the fire cracked.

Bard sighed, low and heavily.

And he swung out of bed.

The Men guarding the house – because _of course_ Bard needed guards at his doorstep – made a half-hearted attempt to dissuade Bard from leaving. Not all Orcs had died on the battlefield, after all, and New Dale’s walls could only, at best, keep out the wind and the occasional hare.

But Percy – dear, reliable Percy – had seen the dull haze in his eyes, and let him pass with a warning not to walk too close to East Walls.

Bard the _King_ had nodded, headed down the West Road and disappeared behind one of many ruins lining the street.

And Bard the Bowman reappeared on the other side and headed East.

The temperature was only slightly as merciless when compared to the inside of his new abode. But the feeling of openness, a free cold, when compared to one of a dense, packed nature, tricked Bard into appreciating the puffs of air that left his chapped lips. Inside was meant to be warm, and thus the cold that shook his bones felt like a betrayal from the architecture around him. But outside, in the open-air – well, not much nature could do about that.

His old coat – his father’s – had been scorched in the burning of the Lake. Dragon breath had turned its frayed edges black as he’d fallen from the tower, had burnt away the edges of rips and tears gained through its life. He’d crashed into the ice-like embrace of the Lake before he had recognised the sharp pain of _burns_ across his skin.

Before Bard had registered that he'd shot true.

An echo of dread, of failure and disgust and self-hatred, came to Bard in the snow. It encompassed him like a fog. The street before him swam. The burns – _still not healed_ – across his skin tingled, rubbing against their bandages. Beneath even the burns, however, the distinct rumbling of _panic_ swam in his blood.

It had been so brief – as he fell from the tower, bow snapped and skin aflame. So intense and strangling, before it had all be shoved away, washed into the Lake’s depths to be replaced by its ice-cold waters.

Then, all he felt was the burning, primal need to survive.

The body of Smaug had dropped into the Lake a mere moment later.

The snow crunched beneath his boots.

Bard remembered little.

Bard remembered all too much.

Bard just wanted to… forget.

But something healings were distant to the healing hands of even Elves.

Instead of his old coat (with all its hidden pockets and little patches), the Lakemen had found him a new one.

(Though Bard doubted they’d ‘found it’. It looked mighty similar to Dreck’s, the bartender. Bard had shared many nights with him, with their coats thrown over their chairs. But he had not found the Man since the burning. Bard hoped he was avoiding the Bowman – hoped he wasn’t-)

It was warm, the coat – that was for sure. The fur tickled his cheeks, with a collar so high, and the fleece-lined insides insulated him greatly when he’d managed to close all its buttons with trembling fingers. _Just from the cold,_ Bard thought to himself. It had significantly fewer pockets than his old coat. But it wasn’t like he had enough possessions to fill them, anymore.

Underneath the coat, he still donned his sleeping tunic and pants, though he’d had the mind to slip on some boots. Now, while the cold somewhat soothed his burns, it clutched at his knee, dug its fingers into his flesh and probed at old wounds. His right foot – _Bard remembered it had caught on a beam on the long, long way down_ – dragged at an odd angle in the snow. His thigh, punctured as a boy, had begun to bud with an aged pain. Walking would make it worse – make it bloom.

But the thought of returning to his room turned his stomach, so he continued.

New Dale was quiet – _which is nothing new,_ Bard thought. _Been quiet for a long time._

Quiet as it was, it was not silent. Guards shuffled by through the patches of snow, though none seemed to recognise him. He was only a bargeman, after all, donning a cloak only slightly above his station. He was one of many in Lake Town (but only one of few in New Dale). The people of New Dale knew of the Dragonslayer, of his bow and his brashness. But Bard carried neither, now. And so he passed by, a darkened shadow gliding by the grey-white stones of the city.

Bard cherished it. He held it close, hid it behind his ribs where all things he had once lost were secreted. There would be few times he could adopt the role of a bargeman from now on. A crown would be placed upon his head – one of heavy metal (or, as he’d heard some say, of Dragon bone). But, even now, he bore the heavier crown of responsibility.

And so, he bowed his head low as he walked through the ruined city of New Dale, eyes downcast and hidden.

And he hoped it would simply fall off.

The East wall was largely unmanned. Lake Town had few guards – and now New Dale even fewer. What threat would rise from the East, anyway? No, New Dale’s Men guarded the South and the West.

(The Men had seen the ferocity of Wood-Elves, and such strength and bloodshed would not soon be forgotten. Lakemen armed with hoes and pikes could, in truth, do little against the ageless skills of Elves – but the blissful blanket of ignorance made their sleep sweeter.)

Bard climbed the East Wall’s stairs. Their white blocks were scorched black, and cracks spread across them like webs. But they held their weight as he climbed them.

Bard, in turn, could not say the same.

The Man’s right thigh flashed with pain, like someone had punctured it with a needle. He stumbled- the toe of his boot caught on the cracked edge of the stairs-

Bard hit the stone, hard, and a sharp agony shot up his side from his hip. A small, low wheeze escaped him.

The Man paused on the stairs, eyes clenched shut as pain rippled through him. Bruises turned yellow and blue, hidden under his tunic but not from Orcs long dead, throbbed in ripples.

But no guard came to help him – to assist their King.

Through his gasps, Bard cherished that, too.

He stood, careful, with one hand wrapped around an unlit torch. Looking down, a stark line of dribbled red down his shin contrasted against the dullness of the stone and snow.

 _Not ruined,_ he thought as he tugged at his pants, twisting the tear. _Not to me._

He finished the staircase at a slower pace, one hand reaching out to grab each unlit torch until he reached the top.

The wind doubled in strength here, now unrestrained by the East Wall. It whipped at Bard’s hair, pulled at his coat and pushed at his knees. But wind was only wind – and what was wind to a Dragon?

The Wall’s edge leading South was ruined most significantly. Walking across its length would be dangerous when considering its hasty construction, let alone impossible to anyone without Elven blood. So, instead, Bard continued his walk North.

His fingers, cold and half-numb, slid across the cooled stone of the railing. His fingertips dipped into its cracks and crevices. Bouncing, almost.

 _One, two, three, four,_ he counted, though it came to him distantly, as if shouted from one shore of the Lake to the other.

Only at the count of fifty did he stop. His thigh had tripled in pain; the cold had only worsened it. So, the bargeman-turned-King leant against the carven railing and glanced down at the River Running. If he looked further, he could spot the road leading towards Erebor’s front entrance, as ruined and covered as it was.

Trailing it, to the dark stones of Erebor’s front gate, he could just spot the flickering, orange glow of torches if he squinted.

He should head back into his home – he knew that all too well. A King of Dale should not go without a nose or a few fingers - and the numbness of cold was spreading across both of them. He wasn’t quite sure whether it would be worse to lose them to the cold, or Dragon fire. Guess it wouldn’t matter much in the end, anyway.

His mind traced the streets and alleys towards his new house, laid it out and drew the way back with a dark line of ink.

But something weighed his booted feet to the stone.

And Bard could not find the strength to fight against it.

So he stayed, watching the drifting snow and thrushes flitter between ruined towers.

There was only… quiet. A blissful, peaceful, quiet – one that only came after such… violent uproar.

“It is cold here, for a Man.”

_And there it goes._

Bard eyes, as tired as they were, were pulled from their stare. He pivoted on his heel and almost regretted his speed as he slipped slightly.

“Milord,” he gasped as his hand reached out to brace against the railing.

And there stood the Elvenking, with a heavy cloak of many layers wrapped around his shoulders. His pale hair, like wheat blessed in moonlight, half-hid a red-leaf clasp. No crown circled his head, but he did not need such a trinket to express his royalty. No, Bard felt that in the air, in the cold, in the stone below his feet. Bard felt it like a thrush to an eagle.

The Elf’s eyes narrowed, just slightly, and a hot rush rose up Bard’s neck. He bowed low.

“My Lord Thranduil, Elvenking of the Woodland Realm,” he corrected. His voice caught, like a blanket on the edge of a table, as a spike of pain flashed in his thigh.

The King’s voice came steady and unblemished. “Stand.”

Bard straightened and tried his hide the shuffling of his feet as his thigh twinged uncomfortably.

Thranduil observed him, eyes like a painting – watching, but never staring. _Observing._ If the Elf stepped a bit closer, Bard guessed, he could’ve watched himself in their grey waters.

They remained unblinking. Unrippled. As steady and even as the Lake.

Bard looked away first, tearing his eyes and forcing them downcast. An intensity he’d not been aware of lessened. He blinked down at his coat.

One of the buttons of his coat was undone.

“It is cold here, for a Man,” the Elvenking repeated after a few moments.

“It is.” Bard paused. “My Lord.”

His fingers trembled inside their pockets. He didn’t trust himself to wrangle his button back into its slit. Hidden, he clenched its fists tightly.

The whisper of fabric. “And yet here you are.”

“Here I am,” Bard mumbled.

Silence. The patches of snow around them swallowed Bard’s shuffling, his swallows. And there was silence.

“Men need sleep,” Thranduil finally said. Bard let out a breath. “So, why don’t you?”

“I can’t,” Bard replied bluntly before he could bite his tongue. He was half-surprised he hadn’t bitten it off after all the trouble – and cells – he’d been thrown into. Good thing New Dale’s cells were rotten and ruined.

Thranduil shifted, and Bard struggled to keep his eyes downcast as moon and star combined on the tips of his hair. He swallowed, hard.

“Dreams?” the Elvenking suggested, almost softly.

Bard’s eyes flicked up. A thousand words came to him suddenly, but he settled on; “No, I- no.” _Not this night._

Thranduil dipped his chin slightly. His long lashes brushed his high cheeks as his grey eyes slid down. He paused. Bard traced his eye-line.

“You’re-”

“I fell,” Bard interrupted. Heat intensified on his cheeks as those grey eyes shot up to meet his own, but he barrelled on. “I- on the stairs- I slipped and fell. I’m fine – _I’m fine_.”

The Elf’s spine straightened, and despite the moderate distance between them, he appeared to loom over Bard. His skin- it glowed. But not like a torch, or a fire – like a star.

Something primal in him wanted to _flee._

A blink- a blink to escape the burns and glowing and the _observing_ – and it was gone. The Elf’s shoulders dropped, and the glowing of his pale skin faded into an _almost_ normal tone. One could mistake him for a Man, if not for the age behind his eyes and the agelessness of his skin.

Bard thought of his own tanned skin, scarred from hooks and Orcs and _Dragons_. The hands and body of a bargeman.

Thranduil waved his hand. “Bard the Dragonslayer,” he murmured. The slight anonymity Bard had been clutching was ripped from his clutches, thrown over the railing to fall into the river. “Who knew he was so…”

“Unkingly,” Bard supplied, undertone quiet but dense with bitterness. 

Something close to a smile, though perhaps not close enough to be as labelled one, graced the Elf’s face. Bard watched on; transfixed.

“That too. But I was going to say…” A pause. “Laid-back.”

Bard felt a half-chuckle escape him before he could stop it. “That’s one way to describe me, I suppose.”

Thranduil dipped his chin once more and gestured to the scratch on his shin. “Do you need healing?”

Bard felt an actual chuckle leave him then. He grinned wide. “No, no, for this little scratch?” He lifted his leg for a moment before its ache encouraged him to lower it. “What sort of King would I be if I couldn’t handle a _literal_ scratch?”

Something glinted in Thranduil’s eyes. “Not a very good one.”

Bard felt his chest flutter as he snickered. It almost drowned out the aching in his leg.

The Elf, while he did not laugh, instead smiled in the foreign, distant way of Elves.

“Gods, could you imagine? Percy, my wrist hurts. Biat, my knee aches. Jen, I have a headache- nothing would get done!”

“Indeed,” the Elf agreed. “And a King has many things to do.”

Bard blinked.

A cold crash fell over him, and he felt a rise of something unsteady rush up his body from his toes. Feeling of any kind fled his legs.

“Oh Gods,” he mumbled. “I’m going to be King.”

Unease bubbled in his blood.

It was not like the Dragon, when Bard had watched it flee from the mountain, watched it land on the Lake with a crash and _watch him._ That had been powerlessness, helplessness, a distinct feeling of doom that smothered everything else and listened to it _die._

Now- now Bard felt only the numb embrace of dread.

There stood a crowned mountain before him, littered with monsters and crevices and endless heights. And he only had a worn pair of boots and some rope.

_I can’t-_

“I don’t want to be King.”

Bard had said it before, had shouted it at the people of Lake Town while his children huddled against him and their town and livelihoods smouldered on the Lake. He had repeated inside the emptiness of his head as Dwarves and Elves and Men alike came to him for signatures, for advice and orders, where it bounced uselessly. He had nothing- _he was nothing_ but a bargeman. He wasn’t a King! why couldn’t anyone else see that?

“Those who refuse power are often the best to wield it,” Thranduil said, tugging Bard free from his thoughts momentarily. He turned his head towards Erebor, and something thoughtful glazed over his eyes.

Bard scoffed and kicked a lump of snow off the walkway. It hit the ground and broke, quietly, and unimportant. “Then I’m going to be the best bloody King Dale’s ever seen.”

Thranduil’s eyes turned to him, _observing_. “Yes,” he agreed. “I think you will.”

Bard scowled and glared at his boots. “I’m tired of people telling me that.”

He shouldn’t be talking to a King – the _Elvenking_ , his ally – so brashly. He wasn’t the Master, and Bard wasn’t the bargeman he once was. The thought of pushing away one of the only hopes for his people tore at his gut. But something was heating his blood, bubbling like a pot at boil. It had softened the ropes around his tongue, too.

“I don’t want to give orders, or lead people. I can’t- I can’t do those things!”

“But you already have,” the Elvenking said. A long-fingered hand clasped around Bard’s bicep. It twitched with warmth but held the strength of a statue. “You have led the people of Esgaroth, _your people_ – just without a crown.”

“That’s not the same-”

The hand around his arm tightened. Bard met his eyes, and – he’d been right. He could see his own reflection staring back at him; eyes red, face redder, hair wild and skin dirty. _A bargeman. A King._

“It is,” The Elvenking continued. “A crown won’t make much of a difference.”

Bard stared at himself through that grey lens. But he could not see the Man the Elvenking spoke of.

“I- how do you handle it all?” Bard mumbled. His cheeks were hot, and his thigh _ached_.

“Patience, and experience,” the Elvenking replied coolly. His breath feathered against Bard’s face.

“I don’t have a thousand years.”

“You don’t need them. Even one is an improvement on the one before.

Bard pulled away, and the heat around his bicep left him. He stumbled back. The railing met his back, and he grasped at it with numb fingers. “I don’t want this,” he said through his teeth. They clattered. “I- I just want to _be a bargeman again_.”

Thranduil straightened his shoulders. But contrasted against the stiffness of his body, his eyes were soft. “I wish I was still a Prince – or before that, an ordinary Elf. But I cannot change the fact I am King of my realm. I can only try my best.”

“I have no court, no advisors, no one to help me-”

Thranduil’s eyes narrowed, and his voice found the air like a whip. “I will help you, Bard.”

Bard glanced up, lips parted and chest tight. He found no words readied on his tongue. A bow without a string.

Thranduil waved his hand and glided down the stairs. “Come.”

It seemed Bard’s anonymity had disappeared on the Winter’s wind as he walked beside the Elvenking. Guards stared at them openly now, stopping on their routes and bowing low. Thranduil would dip his chin to them, continue walking through the snow (or perhaps _on_ the snow, as he made no indents) and they scuttled away.

Still, Bard could feel the weight of their eyes on him.

He tugged his coat’s collar higher up his neck, and almost tricked himself into believing he no longer felt them.

“And this building,” Thranduil said with a gesture to a ruined blacksmith’s building.

It was one of five within New Dale, though the most damaged. On top of the Dragon fire and age, looting had ensured it was uselessness to the refugees of Lake Town. Neither Bard or the few metalworkers left from the Lake knew what to do with it. They had one, less-ruined blacksmith’s forge working further down the street, and they could not spread their limited supplied further than they already could by maintaining another.

“Fix the roof, and use a lock on the door or place guards at the entrance,” the Elf continued, pulling Bard from his musings. “Use it as a supply hold.”

“We don’t have the provisions,” Bard countered. He counted the broken windows. “Or the Men.”

“It’s better than spreading your grain among ten smaller buildings.”

Bard’s brows pulled down. “Easier to protect in just one.”

Thranduil hummed in agreement. His eyes had lost their predatory gaze, and now instead held a curious aspect. Like a fox watching a mouse drink without the gnawing of hunger in its stomach.

Bard raised his hand to his chin. His fingers were tinged with blue. “If we put our supplies here, the guard patrols could just duck down this alley-” he pointed, half turned. “-so their routes aren’t drastically changed. And, if we move the grain here, the population could move here too- I know the houses aren’t the best, but the Walls are most stable in this corner, and with all the rubble we could manage a somewhat stable inner wall, in case we’re attacked again.”

Thranduil was nodding, slow and graceful. Like the swaying of a tree limb.

“And with our resources centred here, it’ll take less effort to spread them among the people. The river’s close to this side of Dale, too, which will give us leeway until we dig a new well.”

Something was blooming in Bard’s chest, spreading its petals wide to face the rising sun.

“I- it might take us a week, but with everyone so close we can spend more time fixing the essential buildings instead of travelling between them.”

Thranduil’s voice came soft, and low. “Good. Now, let’s discuss the weaver’s building.”

A distinct feeling of exhaustion fell over Bard by the time they reached his house. Thranduil – _the sly bastard,_ his mind provided through a thickening fog – had led them back to it, listening to Bard’s ideas for each ruined building they came across. He would nod, tuck his hands into his cloak, and watch the Man as he gestured, picking up cracked stone or snapped spear.

Now, they both stood outside of his home. The Elf had a smug pull to his lips.

“Best you rest, Bard,” he said.

Bard, feeling the weight of both defeat, responsibility, and exhaustion, could barely nod.

“I believe we have a meeting tomorrow,” he said, blinking at the memory of one of the Lakemen mentioning it to him. “Noon, was it?”

Thranduil paused, eyes turned thoughtful as they stared up at the second floor of the house. He shook his head minutely, “No. I’ll postpone it until overmorrow. You’ll have your hands full with the ruined blacksmith.”

Bard half-turned to him. Thranduil continued watching the second floor.

It came hushed. Private. “Thank you.”

The Elf’s grey eyes glanced to him, though everything else remained stationary. “Your gratitude is misplaced.”

“No, I don’t think it is.”

The Elvenking huffed – or was it closer to chuckle? “Goodnight, Bard.”

And without a reply, Thranduil turned and sauntered back West, towards the Elven campsite. No footprints were left in his wake.

“Goodnight, milord,” Bard murmured to his retreating back.

Exhaustion overwhelmed him, arms gentle and welcoming.

He did not notice the distinct _lack_ of pain across his body, or the soothing numbness that replaced it. Nor did he notice the candlelight flickering from the stairway.

Bard the First found his bed quickly, though sleep found him quicker.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading - I hope you've enjoyed!


End file.
